Hey guys, Chiefs fan here - congrats on the strong season so far. I am hoping you guys can continue into the playoffs and represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.

Quick question - what do you guys think the Texans will do with Antonio Smith this offseason. According to what I have been able to find, it looks like he is due $6 million in base salary and $2.5 prorated signing bonus and $1.3 misc bonus according to spotrac (not sure how accurate, but they seem fairly accurate overall).

Do you think the Texans will extend him or cut him? He is 31 and the defense has a very solid core of young players so I am wondering if Rick Smith will tie up a decent amount of money in Smith next year, especially considering his age.

The reason I am asking is the Chiefs will more than likely let Glenn Dorsey hit free agency and Tyson Jackson is due a huge amount of money next year ($14 million +) and if he doesn't restructure I wouldn't be shocked if he is cut. I would love to see us go with a more attacking 1-gap defensive scheme and I think Smith could be a solid veteran along our line for maybe a 2 or max 3 year contract.

Thoughts? What can you tell me about Smith - is he a solid lockerroom presence and team leader?_________________

We may cut him, cause there's some guys we know is in Rick Smith's core but there's a couple that could be. I think Antonio is one of those guys, and throw in the fact that Crick is playing so well in a limited roll, we may cut him or let him play out his contract and let him walk. I doubt we resign him unless he comes back for around 3-5 mil._________________
^CalhounLambeau on the sick sig^

This is purely a guess but I'm thinking we might try restructuring his contract, to a team friendly deal, and extend him by another year or 2 and lower his overall base salary cost against the salary cap, or we might cut him thus paying the bonuses but saving the base salary. I'd hate to see Smith leave the team but Rick Smith has become a pretty good GM and I think he'll want to lower Antonio's salary cap hit either way.

It wouldn't be a straight restructure since we did that last year (or 2 years ago). If there is any restructure it would be accompanied with an extension.

It's hard to tell right now since no one really knows what the salary and cap figures are for individual players or what the team cap will be.

The best answer to give right now is that the only way he is cut is if we absolutely need the money (unlikely given we've locked up most of the guys meant to be FA) and he won't restructure._________________
#JDI

Now apply to Antonio:
1) $6 million is near the top of our pay scale, but that doesn't mean its out of scope with league. He's not even top 25 in cap figures for DE's/DT's that includes players like Ahtyba Rubin, Tommie Kelly, Sedrick Ellis, Cliff Avril, Charles Johnson, with significantly higher cap values.

2) Antonio has not missed a single game in his career since getting in the lineup his rookie year, not 1! Furthermore he plays nearly every down and is still at his best late in seasons and hasn't even had performance reduced by injury. Mario? DeMeco? Cushing? Andre? Schaub? Foster? Brown? Joseph? None can say that. Chris Myers can and was resigned long-term, instead of handing his job to Antoine Caldwell or planning to move Ben Jones there next season.

3) Make no mistake. The decision to move to our 3-4 / 4-3 hybrid was based upon Antonio's unique skills in BOTH (Cushing, Mario, DeMeco were challenged to adapt with Cushing rising to it and Mario and DeMeco not translating). Remind me how many other players in the league play both DE & DT on nearly every defensive series? Ravens may do it but Terrell Suggs gets $11.5 million and Haloti Ngata gets $10.4 million for their scheme diversity.

4) Jared Crick, really? He has played 67 defensive snaps folks, maybe 3 or 4 of which he did anything positive. He didn't show much at all in camp or preseason, either. Check yourself before declaring him ready to replace Tim Jamison's 106 snaps, better yet Antonio Smith's 364 snaps thus far. He wasn't even a good college player last year, his 2010 season may have been good but 19 college players had more sacks, and before that his stats were Suh-aided. I like Crick and think he was a solid value pick with Antonio Smith-esque qualities in that he's a better football player than his stats will ever indicate and is a great fit for our scheme that doesn't need a sack specialist at RE, but he has yet to prove he can hold up against the run and is a project at-best at this point. You don't CUT one of your 3 most important defensive players based upon what you hope a middle round pick may someday become. Richard Smith and Frank Bush repeatedly elevated "good draft value" players in year 2 based upon limited sample sizes with disasterous results (Quin/McCain 2010, Fred Bennett, Dom Barber, Brandon Harrison, Frank Okam, Xavier Adibi, etc).

5) Antonio is the heart and soul of a defense that has been top 2 in the NFL for two seasons since he and Cushing ascended to leadership over DeMeco and the entire tone of the defense has changed since the blue collars workers marginalized the entitled paycheck types like Mario and Okoye (and latter day Dunta). JJ Watt may now be the best player, but do you think he (or Barwin or Reed) follows the Antonio/Cushing model or Mario/Okoye model? If you think that intensity comes from Wade Phillips, take another look at the what the Cowboys devolved into under their "player-friendly" coach.

There will come a time when we need to move on from Antonio, but this is not it. He is younger than Andre Johnson folks, and unless you think it makes sense to cut Andre because he makes a lot of money and we drafted Posey and Martin, it doesn't make sense to cut Antonio Smith. I'm not saying Antonio is on a hall of fame path like AJ, but he is no less vital to our defense, never misses games, has shown not a single of sign diminishing talent, and the options behind him on the depth chart are no more qualified to replace him than Posey or Jean are. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!_________________

Would you rather keep Antonio or Quin and Barwin. I have to say I don't know where I'd fall if that was the choice. Losing 1 for him? Sure. Both? I don't know.

Now obviously we don't know if that is a choice that will even have to be made. But that is the one scenerio that would make me think. Especially if Crick gets more playing time from here out and does well (he should be getting some significant playing time this week with Cody likely out)._________________
#JDI

Now apply to Antonio:
1) $6 million is near the top of our pay scale, but that doesn't mean its out of scope with league. He's not even top 25 in cap figures for DE's/DT's that includes players like Ahtyba Rubin, Tommie Kelly, Sedrick Ellis, Cliff Avril, Charles Johnson, with significantly higher cap values.

2) Antonio has not missed a single game in his career since getting in the lineup his rookie year, not 1! Furthermore he plays nearly every down and is still at his best late in seasons and hasn't even had performance reduced by injury. Mario? DeMeco? Cushing? Andre? Schaub? Foster? Brown? Joseph? None can say that. Chris Myers can and was resigned long-term, instead of handing his job to Antoine Caldwell or planning to move Ben Jones there next season.

3) Make no mistake. The decision to move to our 3-4 / 4-3 hybrid was based upon Antonio's unique skills in BOTH (Cushing, Mario, DeMeco were challenged to adapt with Cushing rising to it and Mario and DeMeco not translating). Remind me how many other players in the league play both DE & DT on nearly every defensive series? Ravens may do it but Terrell Suggs gets $11.5 million and Haloti Ngata gets $10.4 million for their scheme diversity.

4) Jared Crick, really? He has played 67 defensive snaps folks, maybe 3 or 4 of which he did anything positive. He didn't show much at all in camp or preseason, either. Check yourself before declaring him ready to replace Tim Jamison's 106 snaps, better yet Antonio Smith's 364 snaps thus far. He wasn't even a good college player last year, his 2010 season may have been good but 19 college players had more sacks, and before that his stats were Suh-aided. I like Crick and think he was a solid value pick with Antonio Smith-esque qualities in that he's a better football player than his stats will ever indicate and is a great fit for our scheme that doesn't need a sack specialist at RE, but he has yet to prove he can hold up against the run and is a project at-best at this point. You don't CUT one of your 3 most important defensive players based upon what you hope a middle round pick may someday become. Richard Smith and Frank Bush repeatedly elevated "good draft value" players in year 2 based upon limited sample sizes with disasterous results (Quin/McCain 2010, Fred Bennett, Dom Barber, Brandon Harrison, Frank Okam, Xavier Adibi, etc).

5) Antonio is the heart and soul of a defense that has been top 2 in the NFL for two seasons since he and Cushing ascended to leadership over DeMeco and the entire tone of the defense has changed since the blue collars workers marginalized the entitled paycheck types like Mario and Okoye (and latter day Dunta). JJ Watt may now be the best player, but do you think he (or Barwin or Reed) follows the Antonio/Cushing model or Mario/Okoye model? If you think that intensity comes from Wade Phillips, take another look at the what the Cowboys devolved into under their "player-friendly" coach.

There will come a time when we need to move on from Antonio, but this is not it. He is younger than Andre Johnson folks, and unless you think it makes sense to cut Andre because he makes a lot of money and we drafted Posey and Martin, it doesn't make sense to cut Antonio Smith. I'm not saying Antonio is on a hall of fame path like AJ, but he is no less vital to our defense, never misses games, has shown not a single of sign diminishing talent, and the options behind him on the depth chart are no more qualified to replace him than Posey or Jean are. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Good feedback. According to the link I had, Smith is due more than the $6 million, that was just is base salary. He is also supposedly due two bonuses, a prorated portion of his signing bonus and another bonus. That would put his cap hit right around $9 million or so. Because next year is his last contract year, that full amount would come off of the cap without any prorated hit. It would be a full savings.

Again, not saying he needs to be cut or anything. And I am definitely not saying he isn't good - I would love to have him on our team as a replacement for either Jackson or Dorsey._________________

Now apply to Antonio:
1) $6 million is near the top of our pay scale, but that doesn't mean its out of scope with league. He's not even top 25 in cap figures for DE's/DT's that includes players like Ahtyba Rubin, Tommie Kelly, Sedrick Ellis, Cliff Avril, Charles Johnson, with significantly higher cap values.

2) Antonio has not missed a single game in his career since getting in the lineup his rookie year, not 1! Furthermore he plays nearly every down and is still at his best late in seasons and hasn't even had performance reduced by injury. Mario? DeMeco? Cushing? Andre? Schaub? Foster? Brown? Joseph? None can say that. Chris Myers can and was resigned long-term, instead of handing his job to Antoine Caldwell or planning to move Ben Jones there next season.

3) Make no mistake. The decision to move to our 3-4 / 4-3 hybrid was based upon Antonio's unique skills in BOTH (Cushing, Mario, DeMeco were challenged to adapt with Cushing rising to it and Mario and DeMeco not translating). Remind me how many other players in the league play both DE & DT on nearly every defensive series? Ravens may do it but Terrell Suggs gets $11.5 million and Haloti Ngata gets $10.4 million for their scheme diversity.

4) Jared Crick, really? He has played 67 defensive snaps folks, maybe 3 or 4 of which he did anything positive. He didn't show much at all in camp or preseason, either. Check yourself before declaring him ready to replace Tim Jamison's 106 snaps, better yet Antonio Smith's 364 snaps thus far. He wasn't even a good college player last year, his 2010 season may have been good but 19 college players had more sacks, and before that his stats were Suh-aided. I like Crick and think he was a solid value pick with Antonio Smith-esque qualities in that he's a better football player than his stats will ever indicate and is a great fit for our scheme that doesn't need a sack specialist at RE, but he has yet to prove he can hold up against the run and is a project at-best at this point. You don't CUT one of your 3 most important defensive players based upon what you hope a middle round pick may someday become. Richard Smith and Frank Bush repeatedly elevated "good draft value" players in year 2 based upon limited sample sizes with disasterous results (Quin/McCain 2010, Fred Bennett, Dom Barber, Brandon Harrison, Frank Okam, Xavier Adibi, etc).

5) Antonio is the heart and soul of a defense that has been top 2 in the NFL for two seasons since he and Cushing ascended to leadership over DeMeco and the entire tone of the defense has changed since the blue collars workers marginalized the entitled paycheck types like Mario and Okoye (and latter day Dunta). JJ Watt may now be the best player, but do you think he (or Barwin or Reed) follows the Antonio/Cushing model or Mario/Okoye model? If you think that intensity comes from Wade Phillips, take another look at the what the Cowboys devolved into under their "player-friendly" coach.

There will come a time when we need to move on from Antonio, but this is not it. He is younger than Andre Johnson folks, and unless you think it makes sense to cut Andre because he makes a lot of money and we drafted Posey and Martin, it doesn't make sense to cut Antonio Smith. I'm not saying Antonio is on a hall of fame path like AJ, but he is no less vital to our defense, never misses games, has shown not a single of sign diminishing talent, and the options behind him on the depth chart are no more qualified to replace him than Posey or Jean are. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Good feedback. According to the link I had, Smith is due more than the $6 million, that was just is base salary. He is also supposedly due two bonuses, a prorated portion of his signing bonus and another bonus. That would put his cap hit right around $9 million or so. Because next year is his last contract year, that full amount would come off of the cap without any prorated hit. It would be a full savings.

Again, not saying he needs to be cut or anything. And I am definitely not saying he isn't good - I would love to have him on our team as a replacement for either Jackson or Dorsey.

That simply is not accurate. We are paying $2.5 million for Antonio Smith next year whether we cut him today or he plays out his contract. Signing bonuses never go away, they just get accelerated or spread out to future years via restructuring. That other $1.3 bonus is signing bonus as well as we restructured $4.9 million of his salary last year into bonus which was spread out in 11-13. Again that doesn't go anywhere, so Antonio counts a minimum of $3.8 million against the cap whether he plays here or not. The reason we have no cap space THIS year is that we chose to ditch Winston and Ryans now and create $11 million in dead space due to their accelerated bonuses.

Antonio is in the perfect situation to have his deal restructured next year as you could easily resign him for 5 years with an impressive sounding overall number like $40 million when the reality is that you would just be converting converting his $6 million salary next year into mostly signing bonus and add it to the $3.8 we are on the hook for regardless. This would essentially have him play in 2013 for $1.8 million LESS than in would cost us to cut him ($9.8 / 5 = $1.96 bonus per season). In return we likely guarantee his 2014 salary as well which impacts Bob McNair but not our cap and I don't see any reason Antonio does have at least 2 more effective years in him and probably more. The new decision point comes after 2014 when you probably do have to weigh whether he is still worth a $6 million salary which he may not be at 34, but we have successfully pushed out past the 2013 cap crunch to finish up Barwin and Quin AND 2014 to lock up Cushing. By 2014, taking a $6 million cap hit by cutting him is quite feasible (again, we took $9 million this year by trading DeMeco) especially since Crick would presumably ascend to a starting role but still only be getting paid $650k in 2014 & $750k in 2015. Let's face it by 2014 & 2015 the Schaub & AJ era will be nearing an end as well and we will have effectively kept together a strong nucleus for a 5 year run (2011-2015) which I doubt will draw many complaints and I suspect will eventually lead to #80, #8, AND #94 raised to our rafters as our first ring of honor. It would be a MASSIVE miscalculation to risk breaking up what has become a dominant defensive machine by cutting what has been its most consistent, versatile, and durable cog just 2 years into its success especially when we can easily structure his deal in a manner that actually creates more immediate space in the critical cap crunch year.

One final thing to consider. I grow more convinced every week that Wade Phillips will get one last crack at a Head Coaching gig next year, and I'm quite certain that Antonio Smith would be his first signing if we were dumb enough to cut him as he was the epicenter of Wade's ability to transition us quickly to his system. San Diego, Cleveland, Jacksonville, KC, and Buffalo are all possibilities (with Wade likely paired with a younger hotshot OC who would be HC in waiting) and even Tennessee would provide an interesting closure for the Adams and Phillips families as they ride off into the sunset. Additionally, Rex Ryan may be on the market and Antonio is absolutely a Ryan-esque player as he looks to rebuild either in NY or someplace else (Dallas?). Worse still, those damn Ravens have provided a happy home for dispatched Texans and you know Pollard and Leach would stump hard for him especially with a leadership void to fill with Ray Ray and Reed nearing the end. He's even a perfect fit for the Pats who plugged in Mark Anderson from us last year and haven't effectively replaced Andre Carter this year. If you can't see about a dozen AFC teams instantly upgraded with Antonio on them you are just wrong and then you have to ask yourself why the hell would we cut a player that has such value on the open market when we already have him under contract especially when he quite likely also goes to one of the teams we need to go thru to the Super Bowl?_________________

12 Year Texans Season Ticket Holder

Last edited by Apollo Stallion on Sat Nov 17, 2012 2:27 am; edited 1 time in total

As to the other question raised, I don't think cutting Smith makes resigning Barwin or Quin any less likely and given the structure I presented above actually resigning him could make it more likely since we can reduce his cap hit. Furthermore unlike those two or Cushing who will need to be resigned knowing that they very likely will be playing out the entirety of their contracts, there is a value to the flexibility that having older players like Antonio and Wade Smith, that are still effective starters who can be restructured knowing that they will happily convert non guaranteed years into prorated guaranteed bonus as they approach their mid 30's. Beyond that, I would consider Antonio Smith's uniquely versatile skillset and leadership value far more difficult to replace than Connor Barwin or Glover Quin. Barwin's replacement is already on the roster and I have no worries that we can find decent depth in the middle rounds considering guys like Justin Houston have still sitting around in the 3rd round lately. Safety value comes from even deeper on draft boards with plenty of CB conversions like Quin, not to mention safety being a position that we very well may want to consider using a 1st or 2nd rounder on in the next 2 years so we have a young playmaking type safety (more like Manning) ready to be peaking when Manning starts declining as Quin's skillsets are not the type you pay a premium for. While I'm not going to already declare that Harrison Smith would have been a better pick than Mercilus as he'd be #3 on the depth chart for us vs. the opportunity he had in Minny to start from day 1, but that guy has had Johnathan Joseph type impact up there as a rookie and would easily have pushed Quin back to nickle which I am not sure shouldn't still be our strategy. I'm not even too convinced that the gap between Demps and Quin is that significant and considering 7th rounder Troy Nolan has also been in the mix, you can't convince me that a middle round safety wouldn't be able to replace Quin's sure tackling in short order and almost have to be able to instantly be able to generate more turnovers than "muppet hands" Glover._________________